13 ratings

Best Of 2025: Black Dog

Directed by
Guan Hu
Starring
Eddie Peng, Tong Liya, Jia Zhangke
Duration
110 min.
Year
2025

Summer 2008. China is looking forward to a solar eclipse and Beijing is preparing for the Olympics. After a 10-year prison sentence, Lang returns to Chixia, a town on the edge of the Gobi Desert. His birthplace is almost unrecognizable: the inhabitants have been driven from their homes and stray dogs infest the area.

Those left behind, however, have not forgotten Lang. Sometimes he is welcomed as a hero, but others, such as the local butcher/crime boss, hold grudges. Against his will, Lang is hired as a dog catcher to track down a sleek, black and potentially dangerous dog. But when he meets the beast, the two find in each other an unexpected ally.

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